It is no secret that I love my tapestry forks/beaters with metal tines. Many people make them with dog combs. The metal tines slide through the warp easily and if the handles are shaped well, they provide a nice snap for work on tapestries large or small.
Over the years I’ve purchased many tapestry forks from Magpie Woodworks, Thomas Creations (Threads Thru Time), and Timber and Twine. These are beautiful hand-crafted tools and every tapestry weaver should have at least one of these in their toolbox.
But I have had so many students who were unable to get one of these forks or had to wait many months just because when a tool is hand-made one at a time, it takes a long time to produce them and more people want them than can get them.
When I first started learning how to be a tapestry weaver, I took a semester-long college class about dyeing protein fibers. I never questioned that there was any other way to get the colors I wanted for tapestry weaving. In the weaving curriculum we were using a commercially dyed yarn and only had about 20 colors available to us, most of which were not ones I wanted. I was so excited to learn how to dye my own yarn.
. . . So I spent last weekend sitting still and doing some small weavings. I watched my judgey monkey brain say, that is too simple. That is too small. You’ll never express anything if you choose this. And I told that little voice to step off, grabbed the yarn colors of the roses in my back yard, and started weaving. These rose bushes were here when I moved in. They’re hardy. They have to be because I don’t do much besides occasionally aim the hose in their general direction and trim them back at the end of the season. They seem perfectly happy to offer up white and pink blooms year after year and I admire that persistence.
I can pinpoint the moment when I started my practice of sketch tapestry. I had just driven 70 miles from my childhood home in Gallup, NM to Petrified Forest National Park in early November of 2016 through a driving rainstorm. It was the kind of rain that the desert longs for. The rain that fills the arroyos to gushing almost instantly. The rain that makes the desert smell like sage and wet sand.
I arrived at the national park to start my artist residency just as the sun came out. As I was taking my looms and yarn out of my car and settling into the casita I would live in for the month, a rainbow appeared over the painted desert just outside.
For me, there is not much better than a day spent at the Estes Park Wool Market. It has been several years since it happened and I missed it. So I donned my N95 and headed up the mountain on Saturday. I saw so many people I haven’t seen in person for years. I chatted with fellow teachers and friends from the fiber world of Colorado and beyond. I ran into students I’ve only talked to online, students from past retreats, and even some Instagram friends and followers.
One reason for going was to get a fleece to use for teaching at SOAR in October. (Spin Off Autumn Retreat is run by Long Thread Media). I know. I’m teaching at a spinning retreat. But I’m not really teaching spinning. I’m teaching spinners how to use their handspun for tapestry weaving. I did manage to find many great fleece candidates, quite a few of which were already sold. But I came home with one complete fleece and three partial fleeces. Two of those are at least in part for the SOAR classes. Triumph! (Buying a fleece can feel sort of scary.)
Jóhanna Pálmadóttir has been working on a 46 meter-long tapestry since 2011. It’ll take 5-6 more years to finish the last 12 meters. To be sure she has had plenty of help. But the scope of this incredible project is rather mind-boggling and I didn’t really believe it could exist until I saw it in person.
The tapestry is based on one of the Icelandic sagas, the Saga of the People of Vatnsdalur. This saga took place in the area of Iceland where the tapestry is being stitched. It is the location of Jóhanna’s farm, the church she grew up in, and the monastery where the tapestry will live once it is finished.
The project is being stitched in the former women’s school in Blönduós, Iceland, Kvennaskólinn. This is also the site of the Icelandic Textile Center. Over the years, Jóhanna and her team of local embroiderers have taught many artist residents at the textile center, local residents, and tourists how to stitch.
I went to Iceland in part to explore their sheep and especially the wool that they produce. Icelandic sheep are the only breed on the island. When the Vikings settled Iceland around 870 CE, they brought sheep with them. It has been illegal for centuries to bring any more to this island meaning this breed has developed in isolation. According to Robson and Ekarius*, this is one of the world’s purest livestock breeds.
Icelandic sheep are grown primarily for meat but those of us who are spinners know that their wool is prized for strength and beauty. In Iceland there is a company named Istex that manages most of the wool clip of the country. I shared a tour of the scouring facility in Blönduós on my blog HERE a few weeks ago.
These sheep are shorn twice a year. The shearing in the fall when they’ve just come down from the mountains where they spend the summer is the best wool. This is because it is cleaner. The second shearing is in February or March before lambing after the sheep have been in the barns for the winter. This wool is mostly used for carpets. Sheep barns look like this and you can imagine that the sheep are busy bumping into each other and dragging dirt and hay across each other’s backs for many months.
Everyone said you could buy yarn everywhere in Iceland including at the grocery store. This is both true and not true. While I did find yarn in some grocery stores, definitely they don’t all carry this staple. But then many didn’t carry gluten free staples either.
I found that the grocery stores in Reykjavik in the city center did not have yarn. For that you should go to the Handknitters Association of Iceland. You can also pick up a handknit sweater while you’re getting your yarn.
